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Why did the LDP's basically-permanent status in power come about? Every now and again a party breaks through to take the premiership so it seems like it's doable, but is it only ever like in the UK where the Tories are the natural party of power until they gently caress up so bad we put the Liberals (pre-20th century) or Labour into power for a couple of years to let them regroup?
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Feb 14, 2023 16:17
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Tesseraction posted:Why did the LDP's basically-permanent status in power come about? Every now and again a party breaks through to take the premiership so it seems like it's doable, but is it only ever like in the UK where the Tories are the natural party of power until they gently caress up so bad we put the Liberals (pre-20th century) or Labour into power for a couple of years to let them regroup? IIRC, most of the plausible electoral alternatives got pretty brutally suppressed with the help of the CIA in the Fifties and Sixties.
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Feb 14, 2023 16:29
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Tesseraction posted:Why did the LDP's basically-permanent status in power come about? Every now and again a party breaks through to take the premiership so it seems like it's doable, but is it only ever like in the UK where the Tories are the natural party of power until they gently caress up so bad we put the Liberals (pre-20th century) or Labour into power for a couple of years to let them regroup? The LDP has been in power for all but ~4 years since its founding in 1955. EDIT: Misread the first question as when, not why. The other parties are just that disorganized and the populace, except for the LDP's base, are largely uninterested in voting.
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Feb 14, 2023 16:30
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The Japanese activist Left did get suppressed in the 1960s after the immense street battles against the police finally petered out, but that only accounts for a bit. (The JCP is still very visible and one of the most organized and popular Communist parties in the industrialised world, for example.) Mostly the current system is just built in a way that LDP cannot be properly electorally challenged by a seasoned opponent. A lot of this has to do with the way that Japan is super centralized and there are no middle tier regional political arenas that could host an alternative power base. Depopulating rural districts full of olds carry a disproportionate influence and the LDP knows how to stuff them full of pork to ensure they remain with the LDP. The social democrats / opposition democrats whatever they call themselves now just can't get their poo poo together long enough to mount a real challenge. People are aware of this and have just turned apathetic, ensuring the situation continues. Democracy is fun!
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Feb 14, 2023 18:45
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I think we’ve mentioned most of the major factors here: disorganized opposition, voter apathy, gerrymandering, and the willingness to throw unpopular PMs under the bus. (Also an odd pragmatism relative to their actual views at times; I’m pretty sure Abe was an actual fascist, but he mostly backed down when his proposed fascist-adjacent constitutional changes got pushback, IIRC.) If you take a glass-half-full view, you could argue that the “willingness to throw unpopular PMs under the bus” part shows that Japan is a well-functioning democracy despite the dominance of one party. The glass-half-empty view, of course, is that the voter apathy and the dominance of one party are signs of fundamental problems with Japan’s system of government.
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Feb 15, 2023 01:25
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The same model was a thing in Australia for a while and no, I'd say playing musical chairs with Prime Ministers is not 'healthy and functioning one-party democracy', it's just an indication that a party is so singularly dominant that they can afford to replace a figurehead whenever people get too grumbly. I don't blame most Japanese people for feeling they have absolutely nothing to gain from bothering to vote.
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Feb 15, 2023 02:21
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The bars for the public getting fed enough to actually vote the LDP out of power are Kiichi Miyazawa, he whom HW Bush vomitted into the lap of, after he was ousted in a no-confidence vote and the subsequent election ended up being a referendum on government corruption; and Taro Aso, who sucked so bad that they lost overwhelmingly while he was still in the PM chair, and is still a malign influence on Japanese politics to this day (in addition to his innumerable gaffes, he's largely the reason the public only got the one ¥100,000 COVID stimulus check in 2020 and no further).
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Feb 15, 2023 10:18
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The LDP was basically constructed to have a majority, it wasn't a party that was created and then grew to win power, it was constructed as a sort of shell around the people who were in power to begin with. That set of people included the far right and Kishi but also included liberals and even moderate progressives like Miki Takeo. And of course, it's important to point out that the liberals and moderate progressives in Japan largely supported the war and regime in the 1930s. The opposition were radical socialists of a sort that did not win power anywhere else in the developed world either really, it's not like there was some kind of Japanese Justin Trudeau who was about to win a majority and was blocked by CIA shenanigans. The Japanese Justin Trudeaus of the 1950s were integral, founding members of the LDP itself
icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 22:27
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DUN DUN DUN! https://twitter.com/dadboss32/status/1628575598024048640
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Feb 23, 2023 03:14
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We're all going to look so loving foolish when Shinzo Abe pops out of that unharmed.
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Feb 23, 2023 03:32
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Tesseraction posted:We're all going to look so loving foolish when Harold Holt pops out of that unharmed.
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Feb 23, 2023 04:03
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Tesseraction posted:We're all
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Feb 23, 2023 04:35
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He doesn't do it for me, I think he'd be a bad lay. Even moreso now that he's dead.
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Feb 23, 2023 04:54
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They made a new Mecha Shinzo Abe out of the old Abe's bones, but they had DNA memory in them so Mecha Abe still wanted to rewrite the constitution.
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Feb 23, 2023 11:24
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snip
Somebody fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Feb 25, 2023 |
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Feb 25, 2023 15:22
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https://twitter.com/UnseenJapanSite/status/1631275061587116032
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Mar 2, 2023 16:17
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Immortal beings just aren’t what they used to be…
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Mar 2, 2023 19:56
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"New"? Happy Science has been around for almost 40 years.
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Mar 3, 2023 00:27
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AlternateNu posted:"New"? As in "new religion", the term for the various relatively recent, at least cult-adjacent mystical movements that have cropped up particularly since the 60s and 70s.
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Mar 3, 2023 00:50
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I have a weird question probably no one will know the answer too. Colbert made a reference to George H. W. Bush throwing up on the Japanese prime minister. How did Japan react to that? In America we were going through the "Japan is going to control the world and replace America" phase so we thought they were laughing at us.
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Mar 3, 2023 06:16
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Lammasu posted:I have a weird question probably no one will know the answer too. Colbert made a reference to George H. W. Bush throwing up on the Japanese prime minister. How did Japan react to that? In America we were going through the "Japan is going to control the world and replace America" phase so we thought they were laughing at us. I can't help imagine your average Japanese person just nodding and going 'Ah yes, just like any regular businessmen after work'.
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Mar 3, 2023 06:28
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They generally hold off on puking until they’re at the train station, though, not in the lap of the person next to them
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Mar 3, 2023 06:29
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Lammasu posted:I have a weird question probably no one will know the answer too. Colbert made a reference to George H. W. Bush throwing up on the Japanese prime minister. How did Japan react to that? In America we were going through the "Japan is going to control the world and replace America" phase so we thought they were laughing at us.
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Mar 3, 2023 06:59
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Maybe just a coincidence, but the PM that was vomited upon, Kiichi Miyazawa, lost a no-confidence vote the next year and the next PM was the first to not come from the LDP since 1955
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Mar 3, 2023 12:17
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I saw these poll numbers and laughed, it's pretty amazing how much the situation favours the LDP. https://twitter.com/UnseenJapanSite/status/1635407131682938881 That's LDP (自民) and their government partner Kōmeito (公明) with a combined 40% of the vote against 8 larger opposition parties, good luck mounting any kind of opposition in the foreseeable future. I would love to know what the hell is happening inside the unaffiliated category.
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Mar 14, 2023 11:35
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barbecue at the folks posted:
Ask Tetsuya Yamagami.
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Mar 14, 2023 23:08
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How do the Japanese react to anti-Asian racism? There was that talk recently about how Japanese developers consider the term JRPG a slur. This is like the only time I've seen Japanese media talk about anti-Japanese sentiment.
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Mar 28, 2023 03:16
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Lammasu posted:How do the Japanese react to anti-Asian racism? There was that talk recently about how Japanese developers consider the term JRPG a slur. This is like the only time I've seen Japanese media talk about anti-Japanese sentiment. I was not aware of this Discourse. What’s the non-racist term for linear RPGs where you attack and dethrone God supposed to be?
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Mar 28, 2023 03:43
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Silver2195 posted:I was not aware of this Discourse. What’s the non-racist term for linear RPGs where you attack and dethrone God supposed to be? racism is maybe an extreme way of putting it, it's not racist in the sense of a slur, but rather that there was a general sense among japanese gamedevs of a certain generation that "JRPG" meant a worse-quality kind of game. and to be fair english-speaking games media back in 2008 or so definitely did mean it that way because the HD boom and poo poo
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Mar 28, 2023 03:54
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Mister Olympus posted:racism is maybe an extreme way of putting it, it's not racist in the sense of a slur, but rather that there was a general sense among japanese gamedevs of a certain generation that "JRPG" meant a worse-quality kind of game. and to be fair english-speaking games media back in 2008 or so definitely did mean it that way because the HD boom and poo poo Yeah, this has as much to do with how game developers in Japan handled the Xbox/PS2-PS3/Xbox 360 generation, where the technical scope for then-new games just got bigger than what most teams could handle - and for a few years early in that generation, a lot of the mid- and high-tier of games from Japan suffered. Combine this with more mid-tier turn-based RPGs coming out, along with some legit xenophobia and racism, and I can see how and why some project leads and members have bad memories and association of the term JRPG. Personally I see it more directly, the JRPG being a genre loosely set by Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy and having its own tropes, but understand how “Japanese jank” had a meaning in that era specifically as well. But that’s all inside one specific topic, not “anti-Asian/Japanese racism” in general.
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Mar 28, 2023 04:29
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Lammasu posted:How do the Japanese react to anti-Asian racism? There was that talk recently about how Japanese developers consider the term JRPG a slur. This is like the only time I've seen Japanese media talk about anti-Japanese sentiment. I can't really speak authoritatively on the average Japanese person today, but a significant amount of the buildup to WW2 was due to always being treated as inferior by the Western powers, even when trying to play by their rules and being successful (eg do imperialism). The Japanese, who fought on the Allied side in WW1, tried to get a racial equality clause put in the League of Nations charter, which IIRC was scuttled by the US because it wasn't exactly compatible with Jim Crow laws.
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Mar 28, 2023 11:41
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Ethics_Gradient posted:I can't really speak authoritatively on the average Japanese person today, but a significant amount of the buildup to WW2 was due to always being treated as inferior by the Western powers, even when trying to play by their rules and being successful (eg do imperialism). Only tangentially related, but one of my favorite bits of Japanese history is that when the League of Nations voted that Manchuria should be returned to China, Japan's ambassador responded by saying, "You know who else was persecuted for their beliefs? That's right, Jesus Christ" and walked out.
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Mar 28, 2023 12:36
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My favorite Japanese pre world war trivia is the upper class pivoted hard to the western aristocrat dress code to fit in the Western club. There are many black and white photos of educated aboard Japanese in top hats and monocles. To this day Japan is still considered part of the "western" grouping but not so much for South Korea.
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Mar 28, 2023 13:01
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harperdc posted:Yeah, this has as much to do with how game developers in Japan handled the Xbox/PS2-PS3/Xbox 360 generation, where the technical scope for then-new games just got bigger than what most teams could handle - and for a few years early in that generation, a lot of the mid- and high-tier of games from Japan suffered. Combine this with more mid-tier turn-based RPGs coming out, along with some legit xenophobia and racism, and I can see how and why some project leads and members have bad memories and association of the term JRPG. This is interesting, because as a child of the 90s "JRPG" was meant to be high praise, I had no idea that the term had come to be derisive. I guess I'll be more specific about what I mean if I feel the need to differentiate between Western and Japanese style RPGs.
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Mar 28, 2023 13:13
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I also always thought of JRPG as Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy games, turn based more or less linear story RPGs, generally with the player forming a party. It was just something you liked or didn’t like as a genre, nothing derogatory about it. At some point I stopped reading game journalism and that was clearly a good choice. I have a friend who works at Square Enix and when I brought this up in a group chat vaguely and someone else directly asked what the deal was he just ignored it LOL
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Mar 28, 2023 13:40
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I mean - as Naoki Yoshida said recently when solicited for comment on the matter - they thought of them as just RPGs. RPGs developed in Japan. Dragon Quest was inspired by Wizardry and Ultima. Wizardry itself became more popular in Japan than its home country, so uh, I guess it's the Mister Donut/Lawson of RPGs  . Final Fantasy was a literal unlicensed AD&D1E product that only avoided legal action in the West because an unnamed QA employee flagged the Beholder as something that would get them sued by TSR.They certainly were more accessible to a general audience than computer RPGs, which stuffed in as much system cruft as their developers thought they could get away with (and being a tangible illustration of complexity != depth), but which were both niches in their respective markets.
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Mar 28, 2023 14:21
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I never consider "JRPG" a bad word in the gaming world, much less so than the word "anime" or "animu" in the regular american vernacular. However I just want to point out there aren't many JPRG around in the last 2 console cycles. You get Sqeenix final fantasy stuff once every 5-7 years that's about it. I wouldn't call the souls game or any of the Capcom game "JRPG". Oh yeah there is one souls game set in Japan I almost forget. Currently the biggest Japanese asthetic inspired game is Genshin Impact, it even has fake Japanese naming scheme that doesn't follow the Chinese spelling rules. Are you going to call it a JRPG?
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Mar 28, 2023 14:28
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stephenthinkpad posted:My favorite Japanese pre world war trivia is the upper class pivoted hard to the western aristocrat dress code to fit in the Western club. There are many black and white photos of educated aboard Japanese in top hats and monocles. Hell you don't even need to see it in black and white, check out Akihito's abdication ceremony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9W43yGNLq4
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Mar 28, 2023 14:36
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They totally should have wore JRPG costumes. Like buckles and zippers everywhere. Fail!
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Mar 28, 2023 14:38
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stephenthinkpad posted:They totally should have wore JRPG costumes. Like buckles and zippers everywhere. Fail! His son has to beat him in a turn-based battle to claim the throne.
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Mar 28, 2023 14:44
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